


Open Books

by Ariaofthewinds



Category: Code:Realize ～創世の姫君～ | Code: Realize - Guardian of Rebirth (Visual Novel)
Genre: Common Route, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, F/M, Fluff, I haven't played Future Blessings, I will emphasize that this is pre-relationship, I will make my own content or die trying, No beta's we die like dummies, Peaceful Afternoons, Pre-Relationship, Slice of Life, i make the most dangerous content, left alone to my own devices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25605658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariaofthewinds/pseuds/Ariaofthewinds
Summary: There are afternoons where Cardia can do whatever she wants. Sometimes, it's nice to just have a few moments alone with a good book.
Relationships: Cardia Beckford/Saint-Germain
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	Open Books

Cardia steps gingerly over the threshold to the library, the morning light soft as it filters in through the windows from beyond the trees. Gingerly is a new thing to her, like everything else. It was not that she did not step gingerly at the mansion in Wales, but more that she was unaware that she stepped in such a way. Meeting people has brought her many things: friends, clothing, adventures. It has also brought her awareness. 

That is not to say she was unaware of things before. She remembers what has happened. What could happen. She remembers her hands and darkness and the cave, but it is simple to forget how easy an accident is. How one wrong move could put any of her recent gains at jeopardy, how one wrong word could wound. 

And so she steps gingerly, into a room that is unfortunately empty. An odd word, unfortunately. It is not a word that Cardia would have used in her past. Until recently, she considered herself fortunate to be alive, if living as she had in Wales was alive. It was all she knew of living, so she must have been alive. How else would she be here, if she was not alive? 

Temptation rises to chase that rabbit down its proverbial hole, and Cardia pushes it aside. There are times to contemplate such matters, and now is not the time. Emphatically not the time, as she left her room to avoid such thoughts, such fears. Her room, her lovely room that she’s grown into over the days and weeks, with its accumulation of knick knacks, clothing, and treats for Sisi. Not that Sisi is in her room very often any more. Since Delly’s arrival, Sisi invades his room more often than not, and sometimes Cardia misses the yelps and woofs of the small corgi. But she cannot begrudge Delly his new companion, for Cardia sees how Delly smiles. It is not Delly’s fault that her free moments are freer for lack of a canine companion, and so she ventures off. 

Sundays are days of leisure for the inhabitants of the manor. It is a day of rest, according to Saint Germain, a day to contemplate the lessons given by the lord, but Cardia thinks that Saint Germain is the only one who utilizes their Sundays for that. Impey certainly doesn’t. Even now, Cardia can hear the clangs and clatters of the man merrily making mischief in his shed, melding and mending the Ornithopter after its encounter with the lawn of Buckingham Palace. Victor, quieter by a hair, only occasionally causes a bang on Sundays. He reserves his dangerous experiments for other days of the week, and leaves Sundays for the puissant percolations of his chemicals, the days where all they need are his steady eyes watching the distillations. Van Helsing disappears; where to, no one knows. Somewhere. Cardia tried asking once. But only once, for Van Helsing had glared awfully long and awfully hard and made it completely aware that it was none of her business. Lupin…. Lupin did his own thing according to the beat of his own drum. Once, Cardia read that phrase in a book, that the rebels marched to the beat of their own drum. She’d never heard the beat of a drum until Steel London, the sharp rat a tat tat that guided the guardsmen in formation, the enticing seduction to fall into step with the sharp beats. Cardia hadn’t, of course. She’d fled back to the ornithopter, Victoria’s eyes hard upon her back. 

Cardia shakes her head. Lupin is not here today either. He is out, and so she has the library to herself this Sunday. It is a room she rarely has the chance to explore. Her lessons take her out of the house on the other days, and even today, she will go on a walk with someone or some persons after the evening supper so that her poison doesn’t accumulate. But for now, she can peruse, carefully, the myriad tomes and papers that lie scattered in organized chaos upon the shelves and tables of the library. 

Some of the stacks belong to the inhabitants. For example, the large stack upon the desk, the one that comes up to Cardia’s eyes, belongs to the Count. She knows this because he adjusts it when they take afternoon tea in here after their walks. With his slim hands he adjusts the stack, shifting each book into ordered perfection so that the largest always remains at the bottom, the smallest at the top, and the one with the purple bookmark, the one he is reading, sticks it’s large tassel out at him. He doesn’t fidget with the long silken strings. Cardia wants to, sometimes. The yarn gleams as softly as the Count’s hair, and Cardia knows temptation when she sees it. Instead, she curls her fingers carefully, tightly about her tea cup. Control is important; control is paramount when one absent graze of skin could ruin fine porcelain, even fine porcelain treated with Victor’s solution.

Cardia jerks her thoughts away, dragging them back from the precipice and onto the subject of books. She will not touch the books Saint Germain reads; they are his. All of the books are his, technically, but those especially. Besides, she has an entire library to peruse. 

That is how she ends up sitting upon a ladder, her body folded into a gap between rungs, her heels jammed against a lower rung to brace herself, and a book in her hands. It is a book by a woman named Austen about life in rural England, following a family of daughters. Such works did not exist at the mansion in Wales. There, half the works were technical treatises and the other half were written in languages Cardia could not comprehend. Here, in Saint Germain’s library, works accumulate. Novels, textbooks, journals, printed and handwritten, well worn and brand new, all exist harmoniously, and so Cardia wound her way through covers, through titles, until she found one that sounded interesting in a language she could read. She settled in her perch, and did what all readers do best. 

Cardia loses track of time. 

It is not until someone clears their throat below her that Cardia lifts her gaze from the pages to blink owlishly at the intruder. Saint Germain stands at her feet, his head tilted up and back. His placid smile betrays amusement at the corners of his lips, his eyes crinkled. Cardia wonders what color eyes Saint Germain has; they hide constantly behind his lashes and eyelids, and maybe one day… 

“What are you reading, Miss Cardia?” He asks, his voice soft. Still, in the otherwise silent library, the warmth carries, settling about Cardia’s shoulders like a warm blanket. The setting sun reflects off his hair, tinging the white with orange red, wicking down and framing his uplifted face.

“Jane Austen,” Cardia says, her voice quiet. She pulls the book away from her knees and displays the spine and the cover to Saint Germain. 

He tilts his head and nods. “A fine romance. Are you enjoying it?” 

Cardia nods, just once. “It is enjoyable. Have you read it?”

“Oh yes. Although I have not read it in some time.” Cardia returns the book to her knees under Saint Germain’s watchful eyes. “How far in are you?”

“They’re going to Netherfield for a ball.” Cardia slides her fingers over the pages, so smooth that not even the fabric of her gloves catches upon the sleek paper. “Their mother seems rather… enthusiastic.” 

Saint Germain laughs quietly, more a chuckle than anything else. “That is a very good word for Mrs. Bennet.” 

“She’s very nice. But also…” Cardia does not remember her own mother. But she also fears the whirlwind of Mrs. Bennet, who combines Impey and Van Helsing into one immovable wall of a character. 

“But also?” 

“But also she’s very much a whirlwind,” Cardia admits aloud, and smiles when Saint Germain’s laughter renews itself. It is not a common thing, these quiet peals. Saint Germain laughs, of course. He laughs at Impey’s antics and Van Helsing’s brusque denunciations of anything remotely fun. He laughs at Lupin’s commentary and Victor’s tired acceptance of the chaos that is living at the mansion. But none of his laughs are like these, these quiet peals that reverberate in Cardia’s chest. She finds her smile growing into a grin, and questions why. Why would she grin at Saint Germain’s laughter? 

Her chest squirms at the contemplation, and she forces it down, down and away from herself. She focuses on the crimp in her back, the ache in her calves. How long has she been sitting like this? Saint Germain must notice her discomfort, for he extends a hand up to her. “Dinner is almost ready, Miss Cardia. I had come to fetch you, before I found myself distracted.” 

“Oh!” Cardia blinks. Dinner time? She’d come in here before lunch, before anything, and now here it was almost past dinner. “Is it really?” 

Saint Germain inclines his head. “The joy of a good book comes at the cost of a good deal of time. A worthy price, or so I have always found.”

“I agree.” Saint Germain’s hand remains outstretched. Cardia could take it. His hand is gloved, as is her own, but it would mean closing the book, returning the book to its rightful place. End reading for the day and continue on with other practical matters, like eating and walking and talking. Cardia must glance down at it, must betray herself somehow, for the Count speaks once more. 

“There are many bookmarks on my desk. We can fetch one and you can take the book with you. It doesn’t have to stay in the library.” Cardia starts, and Saint Germain smiles, a smile that sinks into Cardia’s chest like a warm blanket on a cold night. “After all, I know you will take the utmost care with it.” 

Cardia nods slowly, slipping her finger into the book to keep her place. With her other hand, she takes Saint Germain’s. His fingers, long and lithe, curl about hers protectively, his other hand raising to ghost along her side, to guide her down as she hops off the ladder. Cardia winces as her body chides her for her stationary position. 

“Perhaps next time you should utilize a chair,” Saint Germain says in a way that isn’t accusatory but more of a suggestion. Her hand remains within his firm grip, his other hand hovers about her waist. They stand close, no more than a few inches apart, and Cardia’s chest clenches, something twisting in her chest where any other girl might have had a heart. “They are infinitely more comfortable, I assure you.” 

The flush rises to Cardia’s cheeks faster than she can stop it. “I-- that is, I am sure they are very comfortable, I just--”

“Got caught up in a good book?” Saint Germain stands still, immobile, but he smiles. He smiles, his head tilted down towards her just a fraction, just enough so that his hair starts to swing forward. “I know the feeling.” 

Cardia nods, her throat thick. Why her voice fails her, she doesn’t know, why the words stick in her throat, in her chest, lodged in the deepest places of herself, she doesn’t know. All she knows is that Saint Germain is warm beside her, impossibly warm as his chest slowly rises and falls, his one hand a furnace through her glove, the other a heated bulwark by her side . Or perhaps Cardia is the furnace, burning with some unknown fuel, with unknown and unspeakable words. She fights to find them, dredges through her mind, through her unknowable heart, but--

Saint Germain steps back, his smile returning to placidity. Their hands lower, separate, and split as they both turn, as they both return to the dance of normality. In the distance, Impey shouts an invective that both Saint Germain and Cardia pretend to not hear as they cross the library, carefully not touching each other, carefully keeping their hands apart. Cardia stays to her side and Saint Germain to his, their hands only brushing when Saint Germain proffers a bookmark to her, a twin to his own purple one. The tips of his fingers drag lightly, effervescently over her palm, and Cardia lowers her face for the briefest of seconds. Enough time to take a breath. 

Enough time to compose herself, to place the bookmark into her book and to close the book and hold it close to her chest. Only then does she meet his eyes, only then does she allow herself to truly smile, for now she can read her book whenever, wherever, and keep her place thanks to Saint Germain. And maybe, just maybe… 

“Thank you,” she says, putting everything into those two words. The twisting in her chest, the happiness with this gift, the joy of his presence, every little confusion and joy and sorrow and content. Cardia pours everything, into those two words, and Saint Germain must recognize it, for something slips in his smile. It is not much, but it is something. A smidge broader, a smidge wider, a smidge deeper, and Cardia’s heart leaps up into her throat, the heart she should not have. 

“To dinner then, my lady?” He asks lightly, too lightly, his voice coasting over her shoulders even as it catches on something within himself.

Cardia nods. “We shouldn’t be too late.” 

“Indeed. It is good that I came early for you…” They fall into step with each other as they leave the library, Saint Germain shortening his steps even as Cardia broadens hers, as they leave this moment behind and return to the rest of the world as night comes.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I haven't finished Future Blessings yet, so here I am, making stabs at moments that the game doesn't have time for.


End file.
